Report 159
Report #159 Skillset: Necroscream Skill: Sickeningplague Org: Cacophony Status: Rejected Mar 2009 Furies' Decision: We do not think this is necessary at this time. Problem: Over the last 2 months I've been trying to get the Cacophony up to par with the other Bard Guilds (not considering Cantors as their review is coming). We have fixed some issues and tried to make the plague theme work useable with the WrathfulCanticle change. The issue is we are still experiencing the same problem from before, we cannot, even now, stick plague afflictions any better than before. After a few weeks of testing, we still see no increase in affliction rate among our victims and even htough BlackDeath was increased 10%, it still isn't having an impact great enough to even allow our WrathfulCanticle to take effect. The problem lies in the fact the plague afflictions we have are just not applicable for what we are going for and need to be changed out for new afflictions. Solution #1: To get away from the quickly healed salve afflictions, we would ask to replace Pox, Scabies, and Worms with Gluttony, Narcolepsy, and Slickness. So, with keeping Epilepsy and Rigormortis, the new list of plagues from sickeningplague would be: gluttony, narcolepsy, epilepsi, rigormortis, and slickness. Player Comments: ---on 3/18 @ 18:22 writes: There has already been a significant upgrade to wrathful canticle that helps to address the issue of sticking afflictions. At the least, you have passive stupidity being given which hinders the curing of these plague afflictions. In addition, the list of affs given by wrathful canticle is sufficiently powerful enough that having plague affs be easily stackable would be an overkill. ---on 3/18 @ 22:06 writes: In combat and in testing with just hidden affliction curing, our victims rarely get beyond 2 plague afflictions. In between the tick of SickeningPlague and WrathfulCanticle, you have up to 4 chances of curing the one plague affliction you receive. By changing over the salve cues to herb cues with the new afflictions this will allow us more to work with. ---on 3/19 @ 17:05 writes: Even with the rather significant changes to make it so that a Cacophonist has three (SickeningPlague, BlackDeath, and WrathfulCanticle) passive means of initial affliction and subsequent re-affliction dealing from their song specialization alone without even including the possible additives of Maelstorm and RainbowPattern passively as well as actively afflicting with ColourBurst and QueensLament, afflictions are still being found to be hard to stick? I question what changing the afflictions being dealt would provide the specialization besides being more powerful instead of giving what seems to be remaining unaccomplished which is the ability to propagate and take advantage of these seven abilities currently in existence. In short, I don't see what changing these afflictions would do not only for the flavour but the mechanic of the skillset if power is being introduced to make up for a lack of fluid ability instead of a complementary mechanic to propagate current means into the specialization. ---on 3/19 @ 19:09 writes: For those who can't understand longwindedunnecessarybigwordsenese, he's asking how could you guys have trouble sticking affs with a bunch of passive affs and a couple more active ones. He's also asking why change the plague affs into more powerful affs when it still won't solve your initial problem. I think. P.S. I agree ---on 3/19 @ 22:12 writes: I welcome ALL OF YOU to come test this song, please. I tested with Nydekion, and he is more than welcome to report what he saw. It literally takes 2 triggers to shut us down. I would love to see people actually test this, as I'm always around these days, instead of assuming what looks good on paper is actually good in use. ---on 3/19 @ 22:24 writes: To make this clear, nothing at all in anything we do has to do with Salve Cures, hindering or stacking of them. We have nothing that slows Herb curing or balance in some way, nor anyway to effect the balances for Herb curing aside from Octave. The plague afflictions seem to have been picked to match the theme and without thought to any actual use they may have as a whole to our skillset. The change we are asking for gets us away from the Salve side of it, which does help us. If you make a hidden trigger check against SickeningPlague, which you get a message for, you will never be effected by anything other than shivering every 10 seconds from WrathfulCanticle. You also have about 3-4 seconds between the two ticks to cure this also. ---on 3/20 @ 02:33 writes: This is really not needed in concert with the other large upgrades you already got. If you wanted to revert it to its previous state, and THEN talk about passive recurring slickness with a recessional effect, that would be another matter, but... ---on 3/20 @ 02:41 writes: That's about right. Half the problem is that most of the afflictions from glamours and tarot (what few there are) are cured with the herb and focus balances. The plague afflictions on the other hand, are mostly salve and purg. That means active afflicting with say, colourburst or moon tarot does not lead to passive afflictions sticking for any length of time, because you can cure them simultaneously. That's why the list presented by Ethelon is entirely herb or herb/focus cures. The other half the problem is that plague affs are for necromancy and do little offensively for other classes. The new list is tailored to cacophony: gluttony to clear platters, narcolepsy for aeon tarot, epilepsy/rigormortis as solid herb and herb/focus cures (but on their own, they contribute little and are meant to act as the 'unlucky' afflictions), and slickness as another solid herb cure as well as helping to stick broken limbs from rigormortis as well as salve plagues (the original plagues) if you choose to use breathe contagion. Hope that makes things clear. ---on 3/20 @ 02:44 writes: Er, meant that's about right to Ethelon but Nejii snuck in